Andray Blatche

Yeah, I don’t think that title made any sense… But alas weather hath wreaked it’s icy cold fist of skulduggery and given me very little time for the update this morning. Concerns over some sort of phenomenon known as “black ice” perils a return journey. I have never heard of such things in NC! Blame those who believe in Global Warming! It ain’t warm at all! Sure, sure they’re related, but related in a Woody Allen is married to his daughter sorta thing… The cold is ruining my jokes, I swear, it’s the cold! I’ll try to get to as many things from last night as a I can, but as you probably realized by now, these are a stream-of-consciousness updates. There’s no telling where they’ll go! So let’s go way off the reservation and start with Rudy Gobert. Cue the Stephen Colbert puns! After starting with the big boys, Gobert got some D-League seasoning (we all know the French are good at cooking!) and in 8 games averaged 13.9/11.4 with an even 3 blocks a contest in only 27 minutes per. So the Jazz called him up, and after only 16 total minutes his first two games, got some big run last night with Derrick Favors out for an 8/6/1/1/3/broke Alexey Shved‘s nose line last night. That’s some solid aggressive play! “Shot” 4-5 (I think all 4 were dunks) and looked really solid for a terrible Utah team. If he can get 20 minutes per the rest of the year with an emphasis on late-season development time, he could be a sneaky source of blocks in deep leagues. The Americone Dream! Wait, he’s French though… Damn this cold! Here’s what else I saw last night in fantasy hoops:

The Bulls are a lot like the Tanner children. Whatever the hell the name of the youngest the Olsen Twins played is Derrick Rose – all sorts of famous but now all sorts of a mess. The middle one is Kirk Hinrich. Because as soon as he’s not on the Bulls anymore, he’s gonna become so irrelevant that even Tom Thibodeau will forget who he was the next season. Which leaves us with D.J. who is obviously – D.J. Augustin. I mean, Bob Saget should’ve just stopped at the first kid! Well I guess there’s still upside with the youngest one. This metaphor is tanking JB! I feel as if you readers are starting profanity-laced rants thus far. Just like Bob Saget’s stand-up “act”! Hey-oh! So Hinrich got hurt yet again last night, doing something to his hammy. It’s almost as if you can predict injuries! Part of my gravitation to D.J. was not only how well he was fitting with the team, but how brittle Captain Kirk is. I would make a Star Trek parallel, but it’s TNG or nothing, son! Besides, the TV show metaphors are a strong 0/1 this morning… Augustin is in line for huge run and in 37 minutes last night went 27/4/4 with 5 threes. I expect pretty high-teen scoring and 6-8 dimes a night with a couple of treys while Hinrich is out, then maintaining the starting role when Hinrich is back with minimal dropoff. More-or-less a must own in all leagues, and I’ve been Bull[hah!]ish on him all along. Hopefully you’ve scooped him up and held on to him. Here’s what else I saw in fantasy hoops on a busy day of MLK action:

In case you missed it (and let’s face it, who’s watching Bobcats games?), Kemba Walker had a scary ankle roll Saturday night and will miss 10-14 days. He’s gonna need a walker for a while after that! Cricket cricket, cricket cricket. “That’s not funny JB, it’s just cruel…” So what if I have Cruel Intentions?! Now I wanna make out with Selma Blair… So what if I’m not Sarah MG (I didn’t even want to bother Googling that be sure I had it spelled right…)?! This is way off the rails… Back to Walker, he’s a guy that relies on speed and explosiveness, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the full two weeks and even more. Cue the Ramon Sessions puns! As a North Carolinian, I guess I am more a Hornets Bobcats fan than any other team, so I may be biased, but I like Sessions and think he can be a decent stream the next two weeks in 12-teamers that need a desperate solid starter. He’s an emergency Sessions! Hey that’s the title! In 38 minutes against the Heat, Ramon went 16/3/5 shooting 6-10 and 4-4 from the stripe. The 5 TOs are no fun, he does turn the ball over a tad too much, but I think the underrated aspect of his game is he constantly gets to the stripe and shoots good FT%. He’s at 3.4 makes a game at 79% this year, after being at 83% the previous two seasons. And last year when he was at 27 minutes a game (22 per thus far in 13-14), he hit 4.8 FTs a game. He’ll easily get low-to-mid 30 minutes per contest while Walker, Texas Ranger is out, so if you need some scoring, dimes, and that sweet boost of FT shooting in a tough matchup this week or next, or to pad those stats in roto, Sessions is in sess… Eh, well you get it… Here’s what else I saw over the weekend in fantasy basketball:

Dude, I had the title “Breaking News – Nets File Paperwork To Relocate To London” all ready to go for a Nets open, then saw everyone was saying that… #Groupthink! So let’s all sit back and marvel at what Lance Stephenson did last night. The 28/4/4/1/0 line was not his best line on the year, the %s (10-17 FG 3-7 3PTM 5-5 FT) were awesome, sure, but I think he did something ridiculous that was off the stat line. He looked like the best player on the floor. Just look at some of these sick dimes! But you do have to question why he fell over on that second one… Haha… Maybe made them look better than they actually were by flopping around like a fish out of water… Anywho, Stephenson had some concerns with two bad games right when Danny Granger was back, but has quickly quelled those question marks and back on track. With Stephenson cemented, I think it’s time to lose George Hill in virtually all formats if you haven’t already. Breaking news – I know – and we’ve talked about it a few times in the comments, but his shocking 81% -ownership in Yahoo combined with last night’s 3/3/5 game (marks his highest assist total since December 20th) – it’s just not happening. In fact, if you told me heading into the year Stephenson (5.2) would be averaging two more assists a game than Hill (3.3), I might’ve spontaneously combusted. But hey, it’s working for the Pacers and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Unless of course you’re in first place in a 10 or 12-team league and still own Hill… You can fix that! Here’s what else I saw last night in fantasy hoops:

Ohhhhh Brad Stevens. You look like you’re 12 and coach like you’re… 12. But at least, unlike Larry Drew, his inconsistencies have been pretty centralized to the… center. I need to work on expanding my vocab! First there was the Vitor Faverani early (albeit very brief) breakout, then Kelly Olynyk got some starts, followed by a really nice run from Jared Sullinger. I at first brushed him off, but then had Yahoo highlights for a Celtics game and was really impressed. I liked how he saw the floor, played hard, a nice-looking shot, and just overall looked like a guy that would be a must-own. Then after some flagrant fouls and rough-n-tough play racking up the personals, Stevens threw him to the bench. From December 22nd to January 8th he was brutal and I had to jump ship as well. And of course right after that happens, he goes for 21/11 and 14/10 over the weekend, with a pair of treys in both. The first comment on Friday was asking about dropping Sullinger and I said “12 team with a solid squad I might hold, but if I had injuries or needed production now, he’s droppable. I think he is bad a few weeks, but gets back into the starting lineup.” That’s me quoting me! My timetable was off, turned out he was done being bad/underplayed, but I still had some faith. I think he needs to be owned in most leagues with double-double upside, a perimeter game, and I think the assists come back (only 1 in the past 4, but was at 2.3 dimes a game in December). Let’s all just hope Stevens doesn’t keep sullying fantasy hoops for us… Here’s what else I saw over the weekend (through tears of sadness after the refs rigged the 49ers a playoff win) in fantasy basketball:

Man… It just hasn’t been the best few years for Kris Humphries… The divorce. The loss of a starting job. Traded as a dump to Boston. But he’s actually been a pretty decent fantasy player lately, including getting a surprise starting nod last night, fairly under-the-radar. Unfortunately, none-a-dat-matters when watching last night’s game! Man, talk about lucking out with the games I got this week, as I had Yahoo highlights for the Celtics at Clippers, and the now-infamous “Welcome to my Poster” dunk. Just dirty from Blake Griffin. If you didn’t see where I cut the highlight, right after Ralph Lawler says “over, and over, and over…” it cuts back to Humphries who gives the easiest to lip read F bomb you could imagine. Hilarious! I lost my cookies all over the office. I shoulda put “And-one” on the highlight too, but my face melted. Getting back to fantasy, Blake can have his own poster this year, producing at a great rate and a great pick even for the unknowledgable NBA fan in your league who reached for him for the highlights. As I mentioned a month or so back, Griffin has been really good this year capped off with a 29/6/8/2/0/highlight of the year line last night. He showed us why fantasy hoops is underrated in the fantasy community. It beats football by actually requiring skill and not small-sample luck, and gives us the best highlights to shove it in the face of baseball. “Oh look, I had Ryan Howard on my team and he actually hit a homer, look at this moon shot!” “Pssshhhh, I had Blake in today and look at him murder Kris Humphries!” (full disclaimer I love fantasy baseball). Enjoy the ride if you nabbed Blake. Here’s what else happened last night in the NBA:

I’ve got a great idea for a horror movie. This giant dude with a disheveled afro walks into various fast-food franchises and just stomps on everyone and gives them sub-90 sanitation grades. We’ll call it, “Andrew Bynum: Franchise Killer!” Dum, domp, dumb! Aka, the sounds Bynum makes when he talks. Oh man, Cleveland hasn’t been this happy since the Cavs beat LeBron and the Heat a couple years ago in Cleveland. And all this does for Bynum is get him moved to another team so he can be waived for a salary dump. I wish I dumped salary! No not celery! Anyway, the Bulls shipped off Luol Deng in their own celery dump (too many Chicago dogs) to Cleveland, while receiving some draft picks in full rebuild mode. Hey, if they don’t make the playoffs then no one has to berate Derrick Rose about his knee! What was Rose thinking saying he might try to come back… I’ve never been a big Deng fan, perils of being in tar heel country, and moving to a team with a lot of shooters (Kyrie Irving) and ball hogs (Kyrie Irving), I think Deng’s fantasy value takes a hit. Sure Deng still played well with a healthy Rose, but it’s just not a situation where I see Deng being as solid a fantasy guy with C.J. Miles and Dion Waiters also shoot first guys on the wing. And you can kiss the 7 boards a game goodbye with Tristan Thompson and Anderson Varejao pullin’ em down. I wouldn’t panic and give Deng away, but that’s just my take. Here’s what else I saw from last night in fantasy basketball:

Merry Christmas Razzball Nation! I hope everyone is looking forward to a great holiday. What have you asked for for Christmas? A ridiculous stroke of luck to get you a Fantasy Football championship tonight? A Christmas Day where three of your guys have triple doubles? Mine is hoping that no more injuries roll through the NBA, at least with questionable return dates. Hey, at least Brook Lopez has a certain return date. October 2014. Huge loss (I was going to say break, but um, yea) for fantasy owners with a broken foot. Here’s what I said in my ranks with him at 50, lower than most other places: “Love his game, had him top-20 in May. Foot injury and big trade limits #s.” That’s me quoting me! Ok, ok, so I get a ton wrong and you can’t project injuries (which I didn’t really, gotta love vagueness!), but I avoided Lopez everywhere so I am not suffering a stocking full of coal like BroLo owners. BroLo’s stocking is actually full of a swollen foot, but you get the idea. Andray Blatche becomes a must-own with the boost in minutes, and was already at double-digits and 19:40 plus of playing time in 15 of 17 games before Friday night’s dud when BroLo got hurt. I see him grabbing 7 to 8 boards with decent %s – along with his scoring – for a bottom end guy on rosters with a tad of upside. Here’s what else/who else got hurt over the weekend:

It was a mere two weeks ago that we were here, in this very space, talking about the living embodiment of a game of “Q*bert,”Nene Hilario.

We knew it was coming. Nene’s gone all screwy on us again, deciding that his foot hurt and that he would need to “step away.” Wouldn’t it be great to be able to do that at work whenever crap went bad? Eh, hey, sorry I messed up that TPS report boss, I think I’m just gonna “step away.”

The chief beneficiary to this mess is Trevor Booker. Prior to Nene’s latest hiatus, which began three games ago, Booker wasn’t even listed on the Wizards depth chart.

Yet when Nene did his Nene thing coach Randy Wittman reached to the end of his bench and grabbed the beefy Booker. One of the geekiest-looking players in NBA history was rewarded: In the three games that Nene’s been out, Booker has averaged 16-11-1, including a monstrous 24-12-1 in a near-win against the Atlanta Hawks.

Anyone stay up to watch some of the Geminid meteor shower start up last night? I love astronomy. And it’s not really that different from fantasy. You use math and all sorts of techy stats like Win Shares or True Shooting Percentage or Gravitational Microlensing to find far off worlds and far off fantasy production. Then if you’re lucky enough, like having the reigns at the greatest fantasy hub known to man, you get to name your own planets! Of course astronomers find so many exoplanets these days that H2894B is the best they got for creative nomenclature. I got Goromotaros! Rainbow Lines! And LaMarcus Aldridge fit the bill of them all, with a redonkulous 31/25/2/2/2 slash last night. He shot 12-22 and is playing like a MVP. I ranked him too low. I ranked him like a worthless Neptune when he is really a Jupiter. According to Basketball Monster, he’s your #7 overall player. And his only real negative is he doesn’t shoot threes – which is what ThrAGNOFs are for! I also thought the Blazers weren’t going to be a gas giant out there. Maybe a little white dwarf. But they’re going off and my ridiculous conception that LA could be traded if this year didn’t work looks horrible now. I’ll admit stupidity there, but the Blazers are virtually the same team. And now it’s clicking. There’s planetary alignment. So when you’re done watching basketball, bundle up, grab some adult beverages and head out to watch the shooting stars late tonight. It helps ease the worldly constraints of stress and fantasy disappointments – at least it does for me – and helps you just think bigger… Here’s what else I saw last night: